■&T1 



STUDIES FROM THE 
HELEN S. TROUNSTINE FOUNDATION 

VOLUME 1 FEBRUARY 15, 1918 NUMBER 1 



RETARDATION IN CINCINNATI PUBLIC 
ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 



By Helen S. Trounstine 

Founder and Late Director of the Juvenile Protective Association, Cincinnati 

Edited by Hornell Hart 

Research Fellow of the Helen S. Trounstine Foundation, Cincinnati, U. S. A. 



CINCINNATI, U. S. A. 



71 HE Helen S. Trounstine Foundation, built as a 
monument to the memory of Helen S. Trounstine, 
was incorporated in the State of Ohio, February g, 
1917. The Foundation is supported by private contri- 
butions, and is administered by a self -perpetuating 
Board of Trustees. It is devoted to the investigation of 
social problems, particularly those presented within the 
city of Cincinnati. 

In pursuance of the purposes for which it was estab- 
lished, the Foundation issues publications at various 
times setting forth the results of investigations carried 
out under its head. It naturally assumes no responsi- 
bility for the contents of the papers which it sees fit to 
print. The publications of the Foundation may be ob- 
tained by addressing the Foundation at Room 806, 
Neave Building, Cincinnati, Ohio, U. S. A. 



Price of this paper, 50 cents. 



FE3 2 IS2J 



L 



6*1 



WITH THE COMPLIMENTS OF 

The Helen S. Trounstine Foundation 

25 East Ninth Street 

CINCINNATI. OHIO 



A 



^1 



RETARDATION IN CINCINNATI PUBLIC 
ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 



By Helen S. Trounstine 

ider and Late Director of the Juvenile Protective Association, Cincinnati. 

Edited by Hornell Hart 

search Fellow of the Helen S. Trounstine Foundation, Cincinnati, U. S. A. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 



PAGE 



Summary • • • 3 

Recommendations 4 

Extent of retardation 5 

Method of present study 8 

Absence as a cause of failure . . . ." 8 

Inability to master studies . . 1 1 

Poverty as a cause of retardation 13 

Other home conditions 18 

Feeble-mindedness as a cause of failure 19 

Lack of adjustment of studies 23 

Statistical Appendix 27 

Index 43 



RETARDATION IN CINCINNATI PUBLIC 
ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 



By Helen S. Trounstine 

Founder and Late Director of the Juvenile Protective Association, Cincinnati. 

Edited by Hornell Hart 

Research Fellow of the Helen S. Trounstine Foundation, Cincinnati, U. S. A. 



SUMMARY 

Cincinnati is taking the lead in several experiments looking toward a 
solution of the problem of retardation. (Pages 25-26.) 

Three out of every five children in the public schools fail at least once 
before they leave school. One out of every five fails at least three times. 
In the fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh grades, more than half of the children 
are retarded. (Pages 5-7.) 

The following conclusions are based on intensive study of 656 children 
who failed in ten Cincinnati schools in 1914-1915. (Page 8.) 

More than half of these children were absent three weeks or more during 
the school year. The average absence of the children who failed was 25 
days, compared with an average absence of 5 days on the part of children 
who passed. (Pages 8-10.) 

Illness was said to be responsible for four-fifths of the absence, and home 
conditions for practically all the rest. (Page 11.) 

Physical defects are at least three times as common among children who 
failed as among children who passed. (Pages 11-13.) 

Two-thirds of the children who failed in these schools came from 
families with incomes too small to purchase the necessities of wholesome 
living. (Page 14.) 

The majority of children who failed live in homes of three rooms or 
less. Not more than one child in four lives in a house with a bathtub. 
(Pages 17 and 33.) 

The mother of one child out of every five who failed was gainfully em- 
ployed. (Page 17.) 

A lack of outdoor recreation is apparent among these children. (Pages 
18 and 34.) 

German or Italian is spoken in the homes of one-sixth of the children 
who failed. (Page 18.) 

About one-fifth of the children who failed had changed schools during 
the year, and this may have contributed to failure in some cases. (Page 18.) 



4 Helen S. Trounstine Foundation 

About one-eighth of the children who failed were feeble-minded, and 
another eighth, though not feeble-minded, were decidedly dull. (Page 19.) 

Lack of enthusiasm and ambition, were important causes of failure. 
(Page 23.) 

Boys failed somewhat more frequently than girls. (Page 23.) 

Failures occur chiefly in abstract studies like grammar, history, arith- 
metic and geography, while concrete and practical studies like manual 
training and domestic science are more easily mastered. (Page 24.) 

Different schools have very different standards as to what quality of 
work should be required for passing. The figures indicate the probability 
that in some schools twice as many children are failed as would be held 
back under similar conditions in other schools. (Page 26.) 

RECOMMENDATIONS 

An essential requirement for the solution of the problem of retardation 
is early diagnosis of the causes of failure in every case. It is urged that 
every school child who fails to pass a grade should be tested mentally, 
examined physically and his environment studied to ascertain whether the 
family income is sufficient to insure healthful surroundings. Such study 
would not only aid tremendously in dealing with individual cases, but it 
would make possible sound generalizations as to fundamental remedies for 
the evil of retardation. The splendid work of the Vocation Bureau points 
in this direction. 

If the failure is due to absence, the causes for future absence should be 
eliminated. This would mean chiefly improvement of health conditions 
and adjustment of home situations which result in the detaining at home of 
school children. The health problem, if adequately met, would require 
the guaranteeing of certain minimum conditions as to housing, food, cloth- 
ing and so forth. This would necessitate the insuring of a certain minimum 
income for these families. 

Of the children who fail because they are mentally dull, quite a large 
proportion would unquestionably brighten up markedly if their families 
received enough income to rent a sunny, airy home, to purchase adequate 
food and to maintain a decent standard of living. 

The guaranteeing of this minimum standard is, obviously, no easy 
task. Charitable agencies have thus far touched only the edges of the 
problem. The proposition is an absolutely feasible one, however, and will 
be mastered as soon as the public realizes the vital necessity for it. 

The large remaining fraction of dull children whose deficient mentality 
would be found upon examination to be unalterable, because due to inherent 
defects, would require other treatment. For such children a special cur- 
riculum should be prepared looking toward fitting them for happy lives of 
physical labor, rather than for painful and fruitless struggles after' mental 
achievement. Promising experiments in this direction are already being 
made in the Cincinnati Public Schools. 



Retardation in Cincinnati Public Elementary Schools 5 

The seriousness of those failures which still persisted in spite of these 
measures, might be reduced by semi-annual instead of annual promotions, 
since a failure under that system would mean only one-half year's retardation. 

Careful comparative study and discussion of the requirements for pass- 
ing would help to increase the educational efficiency of the schools. Con- 
ferences should be arranged between principals of schools with large and 
with small percentages of failure, to work out a common basis of promotion. 

Departmentalization, along the lines of the Gary plan or otherwise, 
would help, since it makes it possible for a pupil who is backward in one or 
two subjects but normal in others, to repeat only the subjects difficult 
for him, continuing without retardation in the other branches which he has 
mastered satisfactorily. A number of Cincinnati schools already have 
departmentalization in some of the upper grades. 

Home visiting by teachers might also serve to increase the interest of 
parents and improve some of the adverse home conditions contributing 
to retardation. 

The conclusions of the present study are based upon necessarily incom- 
plete and in some cases fragmentary data. The essential recommendation 
must therefore be for further study. The ideal approach to this problem 
would be the study of all of the children of a representative school or dis- 
trict, including those who passed as well as those who failed. Complete 
data as to the environment, health, mentality, family income, absence, and 
aptitude of all these children would put the conclusions of this study to the 
test, would demonstrate conclusively those which are sound, and would 
indicate needed amendments in those based on insufficient data. 



EXTENT OF RETARDATION 
More than 40 out of every 100 children in the Cincinnati public schools 
are one year or more behind the grade they should have reached if they 
had passed one grade each year since entering school. Of school children 
at the age of 14 in June, 1915, nearly two-thirds were behind normal grade. 
The extent of retardation among this average group of children about to 
be released from compulsory education was approximately as follows: 

TABLE 1 



In normal grade 

One year retarded .... 
Two years retarded .. 
Three years retarded 
Four years retarded 
Five years retarded 
Six years retarded .... 

Total 



Number 



1,290 
825 
775 
465 
180 

55 
20 



3,600 



Per Cent 
of Total 



35-8 

22.9 

21.3 

12.9 

5-0 

1-5 

.6 



1 00.0 



6 Helen S. Trounstine Foundation 

These data are based upon a table given in the Annual Report of Cin- 
cinnati Public Schools for 191 5, on page 356. The amount of retardation 
shown above is larger than that immediately indicated by the table quoted, 
for the following reason: The report follows the method customary in 
such classifications and considers as of "normal age for the grade" all 
pupils who have reached the grade which they should have reached if they 
had entered school at the age of either six or seven and had progressed 
normally. About three-fourths 1 of the children enter, however, at the age 
of six. Many of these fail once, dropping back among those who entered 
at the age of seven. For this reason about 4,900 pupils referred to in the 
table in the school report as of "normal age," are actually one year re- 
tarded. 2 

The proportion of retarded children by grades is graphically shown by 
Graph I. The huge burden of backwardness which teachers and normal 
children have to carry appears from the black bulk in the several grades. 



'This estimate is subject to correction. It is based on the returns for the children who failed. 
^Details as to the method of making this estimate will be found on page 28. 



Retardation in Cincinnati Public Elementary Schools 



RETARDATION IN CINCINNATI PUBLIC SCHOOLS 
JUNE, 1915- 



key 




iooo Children i Year or More Behind Grade. 



7000 



iooo Children at Normal Grade. 



m 



<2b 



iooo Children 1 Year or More Ahead 
of Grade. 




GRAPH I 
Areas above white lines are those retarded on assumption used in the school report. 



Based on data in Annual Report, Cincinnati Public Schools, 86, 356, (1915) 



8 Helen S. Trounstine Foundation 

METHOD OF PRESENT STUDY 

. The startling conditions which these figures reveal in our schools (con- 
ditions which, deplorable as they are, are typical of those in nearly every 
large city in America) demand investigation. The Juvenile Protective 
Association, under the leadership of Miss Helen Trounstine, determined to 
study the social facts connected with retardation in Cincinnati schools, 
with a view to ascertaining the causes and suggesting remedies for an 
intolerable condition. 

Ten schools 1 were selected for the investigation, and 656 pupils 2 who 
failed in June J915, were intensively studied. The schools selected had a 
somewhat smaller percentage of failures than the average — 12.0 per cent 
as compared with 13.2 per cent for the city at large. It appears that the 
schools draw their pupils from decidedly poorer families than the average, 
for the chief' truancy officer (whose title has since been changed to director 
of attendance) reports 3 that free shoes were given to 80 out of every 
1,000 children attending these schools, as compared with only 43 per 1,000 
in the city as a whole, and free stockings to 160 out of each 1,000 children 
as compared with 86 per 1,000 in the city at large. For individual schools, 
these figures would not be a reliable index of poverty, but for the ten 
taken together they do suggest poor economic conditions. 

For each of the 656 failed children who were studied a card similar to 
that shown on page 37 of the appendix, was filled out on the basis of school 
records, interviews with teachers and parents, visits to homes, physical 
measurements and special medical and mental examinations. The con- 
clusions stated in this report have been based upon the data thus secured. 
The original tabulation of the material was done by Ida A. Broyles, 
director, since Helen Trounstine's death, of the Juvenile Protective Asso- 
ciation, and by members of the staff of that organization. 

GENERAL ANALYSIS OF CAUSES OF FAILURE 

Retardation in school is usually due to failure, or failures, to pass grades. 
Failures may possibly be due to one or more of three general causes: 
absence from school, inability to master the studies assigned, or lack of an 
earnest desire to succeed in school work. If a child is present regularly, is 
able to master his work, and eager to do so, failure is well-nigh impossible. 

ABSENCE AS A CAUSE OF FAILURE 

The 656 children whose failures were made the subject of this study, 
were absent on the average 25 days during the school year of 1914-15. The 
average absence during that year of all children in the ten schools studied 
was 8 days. 4 Children in these schools who passed their grades were 
absent only about '5 days each. Clearly, therefore, since those who failed 

'12th Dist., 30th Dist., Dyer, Garfield, Guilford, Oyler, Peaslee, Rothenberg, Webster, Windsor. 
2 The total number who failed at this time in these schools were 869, but only 656 could be located. 
3 Annual Report, Cincinnati Public Schools, 86, 195, (1915) 
4 Based on Annual Report, Cincinnati Public Schools, 86, 348, (1915) 



Retardation in Cincinnati Public Elementary Schools 9 

averaged five times as much absence as those who passed, absence may- 
have been an important factor in failures. 

Some of the children who failed were present very regularly. The 
amount of absence is shown in table 2. 

TABLE 2 > 



Days Absent 


Number of Children 


Per Cent of Total 


None 

1- 9 

10-19 

20 and over 


37 

153 

92 

244 


7.0 

29.1 

17-5 
46.4 


TOTAL 


526 


1 00.0 



In addition to these, 59 children entered late, and most of these were 
absent considerably after their entrance. For the other 71 children the 
facts as to absence are not recorded. 

Failure is not likely to- be due purely to an absence of less than ten 
days. Thirty-six per cent of the children who failed were absent less than 
eleven days, and hence their failures were probably due chiefly to other 
causes. 

Absence of 20 days or over, on the other hand, would be certain to 
hamper a child's school work and would be likely to endanger promotion. 
Forty-six per cent of the children who failed were absent for such a period, 
and their failures may probably be charged in large part to their absence. 
The 18 per cent who were absent between 10 and 20 days may or may not 
have been seriously affected by such absence; probably it was at least a 
contributing factor. It seems safe to say that, in at least half of the cases 
of non-promotion, absence was one cause for the failure. 

The influence of absence on failure is represented diagramatically in 
Graph II. 

It should be noted that the teachers, in their statement of causes for 
the failure of these children, assign absence as a reason in only 15 per cent 
of the cases. Parents also mention it in 15 per cent of the cases. This 
assignment of reasons was probably warped by the teachers' entire reliance 
upon their memories in assigning causes for failure. In reviewing the year's 
work of 40 to 60 children it would be natural to remember such positive 
factors as failure to grasp an explanation, and to forget such negative 
factors as the absence which may have been the cause of the failure to 
understand. Certainly, a child absent over 20 days during the school 
year would be expected to find it difficult to grasp subjects which had been 
explained in his absence to the other children. 



10 



Helen S. Trounstine Foundation 



ABSENCE AS A CAUSE OF FAILURE 




GRAPH II 

Children who failed divided according to amount of absence during school year. 



Retardation in Cincinnati Public Elementary Schools 



ii 



Four-fifths of the absences of the children studied were, according to 
the parents, due wholly or in part to sickness of the children absent. The 
detailed analysis is as follows: 

TABLE 3 



Reasons for Absence 
(As Given by Parents) 


Number of Children 
Absent for Cause Given 


Per Cent of 
Total Children 




335 
40 

5 
4 
2 


71.2 

8-5 

1.1 

.8 

•4 




Illness and Truancy 




Illness and Weather 






386 


82.0 




59 
9 
8 • 

9 


12.5 
i-9 
1-7 
1-9 










Facts not Obtainable 


47i 
139 

47 


1 00.0 


Not Absent . 


TOTAL 


656 





The fact that this table is based upon the reasons given by parents for 
their children's absence probably means a minimization of causes such as 
truancy which would reflect unfavorably upon the child or the parents. 

INABILITY TO MASTER STUDIES 

Lack of ability to understand the studies assigned may be due to in- 
herent mental inferiority (feeble-mindedness in its various degrees) or to a 
lack of adjustment of the studies to the child's aptitude; or it may be due 
to factors arising from unfavorable living conditions and their resulting 
physical defects. The latter of these elements is clearly related to sickness, 
as discussed in the preceding paragraphs. 

The physical handicaps of this group are vividly shown by a com- 
parison of the returns of the physical examination of those children who 
failed, with the returns of the physical examination of other school children. 
In the former group every child who could be reached was examined; in 
the latter group only those children were examined who had been absent 
for four days, or who were referred to the doctor because of apparent 
defects, or who came up in the course of the routine examinations of second 
and third grade children. One-fourth of all the children examined in the 
regular school routine were especially referred to the physician as de- 
fective; hence the proportion of defects in this group was unquestionably 
higher than in the general school membership. Furthermore, the obviously 
handicapped children who failed' are presumed to have been previously 
examined and in most cases treated and cured. • On the other hand it 



12 Helen S. Trounstine Foundation 

should be remembered that the schools selected for the present study, 
were not up to the normal average in the economic status of their pupils. 

PHYSICAL DEFECTS PER THOUSAND 

CHILDREN WHO FAILED HHH COMPARED WITH 

GENERAL RUN OF CHILDREN EXAMINED I I 

Defective Teeth 314 

75 

Tonsils and Adenoids 272 

29 □ 

Eye Defects 145 

60 

Anemia 64 

5 

Enlarged Cervical Glands 57 
? 

Ear Defects 27 H 

10 Q 

Lung Defects 14 

Respiratory Tract 39 I I 

"Pretuberculous" 11 H 

Other Defects 103 

193 I 1 

GRAPH III 



Retardation in Cincinnati Public Elementary Schools 



13 



TABLE 4 
PHYSICAL DEFECTS PER 1,000 CHILDREN EXAMINED 



Type of Defect 



Children 
Who 
Failed 



Children 

Examined in 

Course of 

School 
Routine 1 



Ratio of Defects 

Among Children 

Who Failed 

to Those in 

General Group 



Defective teeth 

Tonsils and adenoids 

Eye defects 

Anemia 

Enlarged Cervical Glands : 

Ear defects 

Lung defects, (respiratory tract) 

' ' Pretuberculo us" 

Other defects 

Total defects 



314 
272 

145 
64 

57 
27 

14 

1 j 

103 



75 
29 
60 

5 
? 

10 

39 
1 

193 



417 : 100 

939 : IO ° 

242 : 100 

1280 : IOO 

? 

270 : 100 

28 : 100 

1 100 : 100 

53 : 100 



1007 



412 



214 : 100 



If children who failed had been excluded from the general group, the 
ratio at the end of the last column of Table 4 would have been about 
330 : 100. 

In spite of the fact that the general group of children examined in course 
of school routine contains an abnormally large number of physical defec- 
tives, the proportion of defects per 1 ,000 children examined is less than half 
as large in this general group as among the children who failed. Anemia 
and pretuberculous conditions are more than ten times as frequent among 
the latter. Infected tonsils and adenoids have nearly ten times- the normal 
frequency, while defective teeth, eyes and ears are from two to five times 
as frequent as the usual rate. Clearly, such physical handicaps as under- 
feeding and defective sight, hearing and breathing may be important 
causes of backwardness in learning. 

Physical defects lead back to home conditions. The striking promi- 
nence of anemia and underfeeding suggest poverty as a cause. 

This conclusion needs careful consideration when it is pointed out that 
measurement of these children indicated that they were practically normal 
in height and weight for their ages, judged by the standard of the accepted 
norms for school children. Details as to these measurements are given in 
the appendix (page 36). 

POVERTY AS A CAUSE FOR RETARDATION 

Illness and "home conditions" together were given as the causes of 92 
per cent of the absences. "Home conditions" mean illness of other mem- 
bers, the need of help by the mother, or, in motherless families, by the 
other children, and so forth. Physical defects were extremely prevalent 
among the children who failed. Both illness and physical defects have 
poverty as one of their leading causes. One instance in proof of this state- 



1 Annual Report Cincinnati Public Schools, 86, 304 (1915) 



H 



Helen S. Trounstine Foundation 



ment is the fact that a sickness census of Milwaukee, conducted in 1916, 
by the City Club of that city, found serious illness three times as frequent 
among the poor as among the well-to-do. The studies of infant mortality 
conducted by the Federal Children's Bureau found poverty as a leading 
cause of baby deaths. A study of tuberculosis in Cincinnati, conducted 
by the United States Public Health Service, pointed out the importance 
of poverty as a cause of this disease. This demonstrated connection be- 
tween poverty and sickness suggests that poverty may result in absence 
and physical defects, and hence in failures in school. The importance of 
this hypothesis justifies a further discussion of the point. 

The weekly family incomes of 450 of the families studied were ascer- 
tained. In order to measure the extent of poverty among these families, 
it is necessary to determine the amount upon which a family of a given 
size could maintain a minimum decent standard of living in 1914-1915. 
No such data are available for Cincinnati, but a careful study of this 
question which was made for Milwaukee has been corrected to allow for 
the difference in living costs between the two cities. The standard is a 
meager one, allowing for no extravagance, and not even permitting the 
renting of a house containing a bathtub. Table 5 shows, for the children 
who failed, the number of families who were below the poverty line on this 
basis : 

TABLE 5 



Size of 
Family 


Weekly Cost of 

Living Per Family 

(i9H) 


Number of Families 


Below Poverty 
Line 


Above 
Poverty Line 


Total 


2 
3 
4 

5 - 


$11.00 
12.30 
14.00 
16.00 


8 
24 

53 
69 


6 

28 
58 
32 


14 

52 

in 

101 


6 

7 
8 

9 
10 
11 
12 
13 


18.00 
20.40 
22.75 

25-15 
27.50 


64 

41 
24 
16 
10 
6 

2 


1 
1 


9 

2 

4 


83 
53 
28 
16 
10 
6 

2 










All sizes 




317 


159 


476 


Per cent 




66.6 


33-4 


100 



Retardation in Cincinnati Public Elementary Schodls 



15 



POVERTY OF FAMILIES OF CHILDREN WHO FAILED, 
CLASSIFIED ACCORDING TO SIZE 



KEY < 



1= 10 Families Above Poverty Line 
= 10 Families Below Poverty Line 




GRAPH IV 



i6 



Helen S. Trounstine Foundation 



The gross inadequacy of these family incomes is further indicated by 
a comparison with the incomes of 414 families having working children as 
reported by Helen T. Woolley/ Director of the Vocation Bureau in the 
Cincinnati Schools as shown in Table 6. 



TABLE 6 
MEDIAN PER CAPITA INCOMES 



Size of 


Families with 


Families of Children 


Difference 


Family 


Working Children 


Who Failed 




2 


$5-50 


$4-50 


$1.00 


3 


5.20 


4.18 


1.02 


4 


5-25 


3-56 


1.69 


5 


4-38 


2.76 


1.62 


6 


3-77 


2-43 


1-34 


7 


3-14 


2.09 


1.05 


8 


3-53 


1.81 


1.72 


9 


2.50 


2.06 


•44 


10 


1.96 


1.65 


•3i 


11 


2.25 


1.36 


.89 


Average 


$3-75 


$2.64 


$1.11 



The families whose children failed, had, according to this comparison, 
about 30 per cent less income per capita than these certainly not wealthy 
families who had taken their children out of school to put them to work. 

In order to measure accurately the effect of poverty in producing 
absence we should have data as to the amount of absence among all poor 
children in these schools (including those who passed) and comparative 
figures as to the amount of absence among all children living above the 
poverty line in these schools (including those who passed). Unfortunately, 
data are at present available as to family incomes only among the children 
who failed. 

If we could assume that not more than one-third of the families of all 
the children in the ten schools studied had incomes too small to maintain 
a decent standard of living, we might estimate quite accurately from the 
data at hand the relative amount of absence among the poor and the well- 
to-do. Under the assumption named, absence would be proved to be 
twice as prevalent among the poor as among the fairly well-to-do. By 
the same process it would appear that physical defects were from two to 
three times as frequent among children below the poverty line as among 
those above it. 

Such conclusions would correspond with what might be expected from 
other indications contained in these data. 

The tenfold excess of anemia among those who failed (chiefly poor 
children) points toward insufficient and improper food and housing as a 
link between inadequate incomes and disease. 

1 In the Annual Report Cincinnati Public Schools 86, 181 (1915) 



Retardation in Cincinnati Public Elementary Schools 1 7 

The poor are unable to pay sufficient rent to secure decent dwellings. 
Of the families studied, 45 per cent paid less than $10 rent per month, 
and 75 per cent paid less than $15. This means overcrowding and inade- 
quate sanitary arrangements. Very few, if any, houses with baths rent 
for less than $15; hence not more than one family in four of the group 
studied has a bathtub. Overcrowding is an inevitable result of insufficient 
rent. Four-fifths of all the families live in four rooms or less, while 62 per 
cent live in three rooms or less. Of the families living in two or three 
rooms, more than half have five or "more members. These facts give a 
somewhat ironic twist to the statement made by 89 per cent of the parents 
that their children have an opportunity for quiet study at home. Imagine 
"quiet study" in a two room house inhabited by five, six, seven or more 
people. Yet 104 such homes were reported, out of 638 from whom data 
were secured. 

The excess of physical defects among these children may be due in 
considerable part to inability of the parents to pay for the services of 
dentists, oculists and other specialists, and their unwillingnesses to accept 
charitable medical aid. 

Logical as seems the conclusion that poverty is closely related to sick- 
ness, absence, physical defects and failure, it must be remembered that the 
data herein quoted are not conclusive in this respect, because no data were 
collected as to family incomes of children who passed, and the schools 
studied include probably a disproportionate number of schools located in 
those parts of the river valley section of the city where the worst poverty 
is found. In the absence of complete data, however, the only way to settle 
the question of the extent of poverty among school children and its effect 
on retardation would be to make a more thorough investigation of the 
subject. 

OTHER BEARINGS OF POVERTY 

Whether or not poverty results in sickness which causes absence and 
in physical defects which hamper the child fatally in his studies, it does 
involve other elements which tend toward failure in school. 

A frequent concomitant of poverty is fatherlessness. Of the 648 chil- 
dren giving information 89, or 14.7 per cent, had widowed mothers. 

For Cincinnati as a whole, it is estimated' that 9 per cent of families 
having parents between the ages of 25 and 44 years have widowed mothers. 
On this basis, the percentage of widowhood is a third higher among the 
families of children who failed than among average families. The propor- 
tion of families without mothers is 4.6 per cent as compared to the 3.0 per 
cent average for the entire city. 

Even more striking is the proportion of mothers at work. Out of 632 
families giving information, 142 had mothers at work, or 22 per cent. The 
normal percentage of married women gainfully occupied, in the United 

1 Thirteenth Census of the United States, III, 400, (1910) 



1 8 Helen S. Trounstine Foundation 

States according to census reports 1 is 5 or 6 per cent. Employed widows 
would bring the total of gainfully occupied mothers to 12 or 15 per cent. 
A study of poor families made by the Immigration Commission" in 1909 
in eight typical cities showed less than 18 per cent of the mothers as 
contributing to the family income. The fact that this group of families 
shows decidedly more than the proportion of working mothers found even 
in the abnormal group of families studied in that report is not only a 
striking additional evidence of the poverty of these families but is an in- 
dication of probable lack of adequate home training of these children. 

All of the above factors would probably be much less prominent as 
causes of failure in schools where better economic conditions prevailed. 

OTHER HOME CONDITIONS 

These might also be factors in decreasing the brightness of the child. 
Loss of sleep does not seem to have been such a factor, if the returns are 
trustworthy. Early bedtimes are reported as the rule. The majority of 
first and second grade children who failed went to bed at or before 8, 
while 96 per cent were in bed by nine. Third and fourth graders stayed 
up a little later, but 95 per cent of them retired at or before nine. 
Even of the fifth to eighth graders 76 per cent were in bed by nine and 97 
per cent by ten. 

Nor was the sleeping time cut short by unseemly early rising. Two- 
thirds of the children rose after seven, while only 6.5 per cent rose before 
5:30. Nine hours or more of sleep were thus assured to the great majority 
of the children. 

A lack of outdoor recreation seems apparent. Only one-third of the 
children are recorded as having habitual open-air recreation. Less than 
one-sixth record parks and playgrounds as places of amusement. Strik- 
ingly, nearly half of the children for whom recreation was recorded men- 
tioned home play as their form of pleasure. Moving pictures cannot, it 
seems, be blamed for failures at school. Only one child out of twenty 
mentioned the movies as a form of recreation. 

Employment outside of school is not an important factor in failures if 
parents' reports were frank. Only one-sixth of the children were reported 
as so employed. The great majority of these carried papers, or were helping 
at home. 

The use of a foreign language exclusively at home would handicap 
children severely. English was not spoken at all in the homes of 9.4 per 
cent of the children, and was spoken with other languages in 7.0 per cent 
of the homes. German was used in more than half of the homes where no 
English was spoken, and Italian in nearly one-third. 

Change from one school to another may have contributed to failures, 
though the data are not conclusive. Of the children who failed for whom 
the facts are reported, 22 per cent had such a change during the year. In 

1 Twelfth Census of the United States: Occupations, page CCXIII (1900) 

2 Report of the Immigration Commission of 1909: Immigrants in Cities, 1, 139, (1911) 



Retardation in Cincinnati Public Elementary Schools 



19 



these ten schools the number of children enrolled" during the year was 25 
per cent larger than the number remaining at the end of the year. This 
would suggest that the amount of transfer from school to school among the 
children who failed was not abnormal. 

Thus far in the consideration of stupidity as a cause of failure, environ- 
mental factors only have been considered. The hereditary element re- 
mains to be dealt with. 

FEEBLE-MINDEDNESS AS A CAUSE FOR FAILURE 

To ascertain the extent of feeble-mindedness among the children who 
failed, tests"' were made by Helen T. Woolley, Director of the Vocation 
Bureau of the Cincinnati Schools, upon those under 1 1 years of age who 
had failed twice or oftener, and upon those of 1 1 years or over who had 
failed three times or more. One hundred and sixty-nine such children 
were recorded in the study. Of these, only 79 could be located at the 
time the mental tests were made. The results of the psychological exam- 
inations were as follows: 

TABLE 7 



Number 



Per Cent 



Normal minds 

Inferior (not feeble-minded) 

Borderline 

Defective 

Examined 

Not Located 

Total 



12 
32 
13 
22 



15 
4i 
16 
28 



79 
90 



169 



A definite inherent defect of mind may probably be assigned to children 
in the borderline group, and certainly to the defectives. 



WHAT OF THE CHILDREN NOT TESTED? 

It seems fair to assume that the 90 other children who had failed as 
often as the group studied, but who could not be located for mental examina- 
tion, were as much retarded as the group which was studied. This would 
mean that, out of all of the children who failed, 47 or 7.2 per cent, were 
defective, and 28, or 4.3 per cent, borderline — a total of 11.5 per cent with 
probably inherent mental defects. 

In addition to these, however, many of the young children who failed 
for the first time in 1915, unquestionably were feeble-minded, although 
not sufficiently retarded to be examined in this group. It is estimated 3 
from the age groupings of Cincinnati public school children in 1915, that 
2,300 of the 14 year olds had failed at least once. Of these, 700, or 30.4 per 

1 Annual Report, Cincinnati Public Schools, 85, opposite page 348 U9IS) 

- Details as to the methods of these tests will be found on pages 38 ff. of this study. 

3 On page 5 of this study. 



20 



Helen S. Trounstine Foundation 



cent, had failed three times or more, and hence would be properly com- 
parable to the group whose mentality was studied by Helen T. Woolley. 
If 44 per cent of these were defectives or borderline cases, as was true in the 
group tested, it would mean that between 8.5 and 13.5 per cent of all of the 
children who fail at all in these schools are definitely feeble-minded, while 
12.6 per cent more, though not feeble-minded, have "inferior" minds, giv- 
ing a total of 26 per cent of the retarded children who would be classed 
as mentally below par. This figure is, of course, only an estimate based 
on a rather small number of instances, and must be considered as merely 
approximate. 

The importance of mental .dullness in causing retardation is indicated 
diagramatically in Graph v. 

APPROXIMATE DISTRIBUTION ACCORDING TO MENTALITY 
OF CHILDREN WHO FAILED 




GRAPH V 



By comparison, it should be noted that teachers mention "mental" 
causes as being a factor in 30 per cent of the failures, while parents mention 
it as a cause in only 15 per cent of the cases. 



Retardation in Cincinnati Public Elementary Schaols 



21 



Mental dullness and absence overlap as causes of failure. Of those 
classed as mentally deficient, 36 per cent were absent 20 days or more. 
This should be compared with the 50 per cent of normally bright children 
who failed who were absent for 20 days or more. The average amount of 
absence of the mentally deficient was 21 days, while the average for normal 
children who failed (excluding these dull children) was about 28 days. 
This is due to the fact that normal children are less likely to fail than dull 
children, and that when bright children do fail, absence or some other cause 
is likely to be involved. 

OVERLAP OF ABSENCE AND DULLNESS AS CAUSES OF FAILURE 




GRAPH VI 

The cross-hatched sector represents the 9 per cent, of the children who failed who were 
both dull and absent over 20 days, and whose failure may therefore have been due to 
either or both of these causes. 



The connection between feeble-mindedness and poverty is worth in- 
vestigating. Of the 54 children found to be "inferior," "borderline" or 
"defective," whose family incomes are known, 37, or 68.5 per cent, were 



22 Helen S. Trounstine Foundation 

below the poverty line. Of the 18 "defective" whose incomes were known, 
12, or 67 per cent, were poor. If we assume that all feeble-minded children 
become retarded, and if we assume that not over half of all families of 
children in these schools were poor, the returns indicate that the proportion 
of mentally deficient children was twice as great among the families with 
insufficient incomes as among other families. 

The data are too meager to be conclusive on this point. If the hypoth- 
esis that feeble-minded ness and poverty, among retarded children, are 
correlated, is accepted, it raises a fundamental point. If feeble-mindedness 
is hereditary, as it probably is in a large proportion of cases, it would not 
seem safe to assume that it is chiefly a direct result of poverty. The 
hereditary nature of feeble-mindedness makes it quite probable that the 
feeble-minded children had parents of low mentality. Stupid men earn 
low wages and stupid women spend money unwisely. Hence it seems likely 
that feeble-mindedness is more a cause of poverty than a result of it. 

This conclusion would give color to a theory that a large proportion of 
these children who fail may be of decadent stock which may be defective 
mentally and physically, weak in resistance to disease, incompetent econom- 
ically and generally deficient. A striking fact in this connection is that 
35 per cent of the families of the children who failed were treated during 
the year September, 1914 to September, 1915, by the Social Agencies re- 
porting to the confidential exchange of the Council of Social Agencies. 1 

This old problem of which of two correlated conditions is cause and 
which is effect cannot be settled finally in this case. If the degeneracy 
theory, should hold good here, however, it could not excuse the present 
situation. Even among the mentally defective, overcrowded housing, 
deficient food and insufficient medical care certainly augment any natural 
tendency toward disease. Moreover, the feeble-minded form only a 
small minority of the children who fail. 

The two factors of absence and mental dullness, even when their over- 
lapping is allowed for, account for at least 65 per cent of the failures. Other 
factors must be sought to explain the remaining 35 per cent. 

The causes for inability to master studies, other than mental deficiency, 
are more difficult to measure. Physical defects appear to be by far the 
most important. Of the 439 children examined, 257, or 58.5 per cent, had 
recorded physical defects. Many of these physically defective children 
were, however, among those whose failure has already been ascribed to 
absence or mental dullness. When these are omitted, less than 20 per 
cent of the whole number of children who failed remain who could have 
been held back solely because of physical defects. No means of measuring 
the importance of such defects in causing failure is however available. 
Teachers refer to physical reasons as contributing to 17 per cent of failures; 
parents ascribe them as causes in 26 per cent of the cases. These estimates, 
however, are not based on any scientific study of individual children. 

1 For details see page 33 of this study. 



Retardation in Cincinnati Public Elementary Schools 23 

The complication of causes for failure thus far discussed may be sum- 
marized as follows: 

Of every 100 children who failed, as covered in this study, approximately 
50 were absent for a total of over three weeks each. Of these, 9 were 
mentally dull, and about 30 had physical defects. 

In addition to the above, 17 were mentally dull but were absent less than 
three weeks. Of these 10 or 11 had physical defects. 

In addition to the above, about 20 had physical defects, but were not 
absent for three weeks nor mentally dull. 

Further complicating factors, less susceptible to accurate measurement, 
were absence of the mother at work, death of the father or mother, lack of 
outdoor recreation and use of a foreign language at home. 

These factors all affect failure either through absence of the child from 
his studies, or through inability to master them. Even if a child were 
present constantly, however, and were quite normal in intelligence, he 
might fail because of lack of interest in his work, or because of a perverse 
disposition. 

How far was the children's own lack of eagerness to learn an important 
cause of failure? The reports as to which studies the children were poor 
in (taken from interviews with the parents) show less than one-fifth of the 
children as being poor in effort and a still smaller proportion poor in conduct, 
while more than half are reported as poor in other subjects. 

The teachers, who might be expected to remember troublesome children, 
estimate conduct as a factor in about 2 per cent of the failures, truancy 
O.7 per cent and disposition and habits 9.2 per cent. Faulty attitude to- 
ward the school is blamed by the teachers as a cause in nearly one-sixth 
of the failures, but this difficulty, like failure to master studies, is as likely 
to be the fault of the school as of the child, and will be discussed in the 
next section. 

A serious fact is that one-third of the children for whom the question is 
answered are reported as not ambitious. Four-fifths of the parents are 
reported as ambitious for the children. 

Lack of enthusiasm on the part of the child must therefore be entered 
as a significant cause of failure, though wilful misbehavior is rarer than 
might be expected. 

It is probably because of a greater lack of interest in school work that 
failure was about one-fifth more prevalent among boys than among girls in 
the ten schools studied. 

LACK OF ADJUSTMENT OF STUDIES 

The ability of a scholar to master his studies may be represented as the 
ratio between the mental capacity of the child, and the suitability of the 
studies to his intelligence. A precocious child of eight would fail in college 
algebra, while an imbecile of 15 would fail in a first grade reading lesson. 
In the latter case the child's dullness would be at fault; in the former the 
selection of studies would be to blame. 



24 Helen S. Trounstine Foundation 

Failure of a child to master a given curriculum is therefore a two-sided 
situation with the fault lying on both sides. 

The record of the studies in which the children failed shows their 
relative ability to learn to perform concrete, manual tasks and their ina- 
bility to master abstract matters. The subjects in the order of success 
were as follows: 

TABLE 8 



Subject 



Household arts 

I ndustrial arts 

Conduct 

Effort 

Writing 

Spelling 

Reading 

German 

History 

Language and composition. 

Arithmetic 

Geography , 



Per cent of children in 

this group, recorded as 

taking subject, who 

were poor in it 1 



5-3 
18.1 

17-3 
18.6 
36.6 
41.4 
47.8 

45-o 
71.8 
74.8 
77.6 

75-3 



Clearly, subjects requiring manual dexterity and bearing obvious service 
to the child are quite readily mastered. Household arts appeal to nearly 
every girl as of immediate practical value, involve manual dexterity and 
deal with tangible objects. Hence mastery here is well-nigh universal 
among these children. Industrial arts involve manual dexterity and deal 
with tangible objects, but are of less immediate practical use to boys than 
cooking and sewing are to girls. Writing is a purely manual problem but 
the practical value of beautiful script is less obvious to the child than that 
of good biscuits. Besides, the appeal to the constructive instinct is lacking. 

Spelling is purely a matter of memorization, without the appeal of 
manual construction but without the difficulty of abstract reasoning. 
Reading has a practical appeal but begins to call in higher reasoning centers. 
History and geography, because of their removal from daily values and 
their requirements for thought, come high in the scale of difficulty. Gram- 
mar is a complex abstraction, and composition is one of the really difficult 
arts, of little practical appeal to a child of laboring outlook. Arithmetic, 
in spite of the admirable efforts of Cincinnati school authorities to make it 
concrete, is a highly abstract science. Public schools attempt to teach 
feeble-minded children the meaning of "aliquot numbers," whose very 
definition the principal of one of Cincinnati's best schools was unable to 
give without looking it up. 

The listlessness and lack of ambition which have been mentioned as a 
serious cause of failures in school are due in part to the fact that school 

1 These percentages are not based on official reports, but are recollections and impressions of parents 
and teachers. 



Retardation in Cincinnati Public Elementary Schools 25 

work is not interesting. Now "interest" comes directly from the Latin and 
means "It concerns." Studies are uninteresting because they have no 
vital connection with the real life and needs of the children. Psycholog- 
ical experiments have proved that resources of energy are released when 
interest is aroused. Interest can be gained by connecting the school work 
directly with the child's own aptitudes, environment and future develop- 
ment. 

Dropping for a moment the unreasoning assumption that in a democ- 
racy every child should be prepared for college, what are the practical needs 
of a boy or girl whose mental calibre fits him only for unskilled or semi- 
skilled labor? He needs, first, training in the use of his body in the rougher 
practical crafts. This the record seems to show him capable of. Second, 
he needs enough knowledge of reading, writing, spelling and grammar to 
enable him to read and understand a newspaper and to write a legible and 
intelligible letter occasionally. Of arithmetic he needs only enough to 
count money correctly, to add simple columns, and to solve rudimentary 
problems of measurement. 

For the sake of his fellow citizens he needs to understand in rough 
outline the ideals of the American Government, the practical ways in which 
it touches his life, and how to exercise the ballot. For his own sake, he 
needs to understand as much of the practical life of industry and of the 
meaning of the fine arts as he can. 

If the traditions of the past were swept aside, and a curriculum made 
up for this group of children with these definite needs in mind, failures due 
to dullness could be practically eliminated. 

On the other hand, children of keen minds, who are fitted to become 
engineers, chemists, editors, or lawyers need quite a different elementary 
training. They must learn to master abstract conceptions in mathematics, 
language and philosophy. Even those children whose mental equipment 
is such as to fit them for bookkeeping, salesmanship and skilled crafts of 
various sorts, need to be able to grasp more complicated ideas than those 
who are destined to be the unskilled workers of the world. 

Any attempt, therefore, to simplify the abstract studies for all children 
to such a degree that the dullards can grasp it, involves a serious injustice 
to the intelligent children who need the severer discipline. The method 
of having all of the work alike for practically all of the children, and then 
requiring those who do not grasp the teaching in one year to repeat it a 
second time, is certainly a bungling expedient. 

What is needed is a prompt classification of children according to their 
innate mental capacities, and an adjustment of the studies to fit the needs 
of their various grades of intelligence in the light of the future stations 
in life to which their abilities destine them. 

Cincinnati schools are already making some notable experiments looking 
toward some such intelligent adjustment of education to actual needs. 
The Vocation Bureau is now working at the task of making such adjust- 



26 Helen S. Trounstine Foundation 

ments on the basis of mental tests. The "Opportunity School" is an actual 
application on a limited scale of the principle of special treatment for 
retarded children. Three "rapidly moving" classes are now in operation for 
brilliant children. The development of industrial arts and its extension 
into the lower grades is a preliminary step in this direction. Classes in 
sewing, dressmaking, power-machine operating, garment making, basketry, 
weaving, millinery and embroidery have organized in an attempt to meet 
the needs of average and retarded pupils. The "observation classes" in 
the Peaslee School are an experiment in the same direction. Distinctively 
industrial classes for retarded children are in operation. The classes in 
the Bloom School, for children who havs finished the grades before the 
legal mininum working age but who cannot go on to high school are sug- 
gestive of possible adjustment of curricula to special needs. Thus Cincin- 
nati has made a start toward remedying conditions which many other 
cities are ignoring in their own schools. 

STANDARDS OF PROMOTION 

The importance of absence as a cause of failure would lead one to sup- 
pose that the schools having the largest percentages of absence would 
tend to have the largest percentages of failures, and that the schools with 
the smallest percentages of absence would tend to have the smallest per- 
centages of failures. No such connection exists among the fifty-nine 
elementary schools of the city. It is true that the school having the 
largest percentage of absence (io.i pef cent) has also the largest percentage 
of failure (31.40 per cent). But here the correlation ends. The other four 
schools with the largest percentages of absence have percentages of failure 
very close to the average. The six schools with the least absence include 
the school which has the fourth largest percentage of failure in the city. 
Of the seven schools with the largest proportion of failures, all except one 
have less than the average amount of absence, and the schools with the 
least failures have a normal average of absence. 

These apparently paradoxical facts suggest the hypothesis that the 
standards of promotion vary radically from school to school. Naturally, 
in any school, the children who are most absent and least intelligent would 
be the first to fail. In some schools, however, the lines are apparently 
drawn very rigidly, while in others a generous laxity obtains, so that a 
child who would easily pass in one school is repeatedly held back under the 
more severe standards of another. Without some such hypothesis it is 
impossible to understand how, in one group of six Cincinnati schools, one 
child out of every five failed in 1914-15, while in one other school only one 
in 27 failed, and in a group of eight schools, only from one pupil in 15 to 
one in 11 failed. Thus, in the former group of schools, about 20 percent 
of the pupils failed, while in the latter group the percentage was only 
about 8. 

The radical variability in standards of promotion which these figures 
indicate is a serious misfortune for the children. Those who are held 



Retardation in Cincinnati Public Elementary Schools 



27 



back because of unduly rigid standards are certainly injured in their ambi- 
tion, their interest and their acquaintance with higher departments of 
learning. Those who pass because of lax standards are being hurried 
through a course of badly digested, ill-comprehended material which will 
leave them ill-fitted for life. 



STATISTICAL APPENDIX 

TABLE 9 
EXTENT OF NON-PROMOTION IN CINCINNATI PUBLIC GRADE SCHOOLS IN 

1914 AND 1915 





Numberof Pupils 1 


Number not 1 


Percent not 


Percent not 8 


Grade 


in 1915 


Promoted 191 5 


Promoted 19 15 


Promoted 19 14 


Kindergarten 


2,522 


157 


6% 




1st 


5,786 


1,214 


21% 


21% 


2nd 


4,984 


644 


13% 


12% 


3rd 


4,893 


705 


14% 


14% 


4th 


4,612 


554 


12% 


13% 


5th 


4-349 


528 


12% 


13% 


6th 


3,931 


427 


n% 


12 /O 


7th 


3J57 


358 


11% 


12% 


8th 


2,425 


217 


9% 


9% 


All Grades 


36,659 


4,804 


13% 


13% 



TABLE 10 

AGE DISTRIBUTION BY GRADES IN JUNE, 1915 OF CHILDREN WHO FAILED 

TO PASS AT THAT TIME IN THE TEN SCHOOLS STUDIED 



Grade 



Age 



1st 

2nd 

3rd 

4th 

5th 

6th 

7th 

8th 

All Grades. 





6 


7 


8 


9 


10 


1 1 


12 


13 


14 


15 


16 


69 


77 


27 


5 


1 
















7 


48 


26 


10 




2 




1 












14 


34 


27 


14 


2 


1 


I 














2 


1 1 


14 


19 


b 


4 


2 














3 


16 


8 


13 


IS 


9 


1 














5 


IO 
3 


16 

16 

4 


20 

23 
10 


18 
16 
10 


5 
6 

2 




59 


84 


89 


67 


52 


49 


44 


56 


77 


55 


14 



All Ages 

179 
94 
93 
58 
68 

74 
64 
26 

656 



1 Annual Report Cincinnati Public Schools, 86, opp. 348. Tabic VII (1913) 

2 Annual Report Cincinnati Public Schools, S5, 345 (1914) 



28 Helen S. Trounstine Foundation 

METHOD OF ESTIMATING TRUE EXTENT OF RETARDATION 

The Cincinnati school report for 1914-15 shows that 4,019 children 
born in 1908, were in the first grade in June, 1915, and that 2,025 children 
born in 1907, were also in the first grade at the same time. Both of these 
groups are stated, in accordance with the generally accepted practice, as 
being "of normal age for the grade." However, the group of 2,025 children 
born in 1907, must include the children born in that year who entered first 
grade in 1913, at the age of six, and failed. The school report for 1913-14, 
shows" that 3,783 children in 1908 were in the first grade in June, 1914. 
Only 2,539 children born in 1908, appear as being in the second grade in 
June, 1915. What became of the other 1,244 children? Some of them 
may have gone to private or parochial schools for the second grade. Part 
of them, however, certainly failed. About 21 per cent of all first grade 
children failed in 1914. 3 Twenty-one per cent of 3,783 is 795. If this 
many of the first graders born in 1907, failed in June, 1914, nearly 800 of 
the supposedly normal aged children in the first grade in 1914-15 were in 
reality one year retarded. 

The objection raised against this method of estimating retardation is 
that the first grade is not normal; that children are simply held there until 
they can be properly classified ; and that apparent failure there is not signif- 
icant. This viewpoint gains support from the fact that, in Cincinnati 
schools, 20 to 25 per cent of the first grade pupils are not promoted, while 
only 12 to 15 per cent of second grade pupils are held back. Suppose that 
we assume that in June, 1914, the percentage of true failures among the 
six-year-olds in the first grade was only 10 per cent instead of the 21 per 
cent assumed above. In this case, only 378 of the 2,025 first graders born 
in 1907, were really retarded. This would leave 1,647 children who were 
born in 1907, and who were normally completing the first grade in June, 
1915, as compared with 4,019 born in 1908. Of this 4,019, however, 
probably 10 per cent will be of the type referred to above, held back for 
classification purposes but not truly retarded. The ratio of true six-year- 
old entries to seven-year-olds would thus be 3,617 : 1,647. Now it seems 
reasonable to assume that about the same proportion of the former as of 
the latter pupils will fail, so that the ratio of normally advanced six year 
entries to normally advanced seven-year entries will continue to be the 
same. We can ascertain from the age-grade classification in 1915 the 
number of normally advanced children who entered at the approximate age 
of six. Hence we can determine the number normally advanced who 
entered at seven, and by subtraction ascertain how many of those given 
as "of normal age for the grade" had actually failed once. This proc- 
ess is embodied in the following table: 



1 Annual Report Cincinnati Public Schools 86, 356 (191S) 

2 Annual Report Cincinnati Public Schools, 85, 356 (1914) 

3 Annual Report Cincinnati Public Schools, 85, 34s (1914) 



Retardation in Cincinnati Public Elementary Schools 

TABLE ii 
ESTIMATE OF TRUE RETARDATION IN JUNE, 1915 



29 



Grade 


Entered at 

approximate 

age of six 


Children 

one year 

older in 

same grade 


Estimated 
number 

normally ad- 
vanced of 

latter group 


Retarded Children 


Entered at 

six years 

and failed 

once 


On basis 
used in 
report 


Total 


1 


2 


3 


4 


5 


6 


7 


1 
2 
3 
4 


3617 

2539 
2098 
1572 


2025 
1767 
1648 
1476 


1647 

1 1 56 

955 

717 


378 
611 

693 
759 


737 
1093 

1554 
1871 


1115 

1704 
2247 
2630 


5 
6 

7 
8 


1319 

1210 

1022 

823 


1204 
1182 
1024 
1039 


600 

55i 
466 

375 


604 

631 

558 
664 


1956 

1895 

1392 

778 


2560 
2526 

195° 
1442 


Total 


14,200 


11,365 


6,467 


4,898 


11,276 


16,174 



Column 2 contains children in first grade born in 1908, (minus 10 per 
cent), in second grade born in 1907, in the third grade born in 1906, etc. 
Column 3 contains children in the same grades born one year later than 
those in Column 2. Column 4 contains the number of actually normally 
advanced children among those of Column 3, estimated as explained above. 
Column 5 is the difference between Column 3 and 4. It represents the 
estimated number of retarded children included among those entered in 
the school report as "of normal age for the grade." 



TABLE 12 

NUMBER OF PREVIOUS FAILURES OF CHILDREN IN EACH GRADE WHO 

FAILED, IN THE TEN SCHOOLS STUDIED, IN JUNE, 1915 



Grade 


Number of Previous Failures 


Total 


Not 
Given 


Grand 
Total 


None 


1 


2 


3 


4 


5 


1st 


53 
11 

9 

3 
6 

4 
3 
3 


109 
43 
43 
20 
20 
20 
21 
16 


11 

24 
34 
19 
18 
26 
32 
6 


1 

4 
4 
8 

14 

18 

3 


1 

4 
10 

3 


1 
1 


174 
83 
92 
56 
68 

7i 
59 
25 


5 

11 

1 

2 

3 
5 
1 


179 
94 
93 
58 
68 

74 
64 
26 


2nd 


-ird 


4th 




2 


5th 

6th 

7th 


8th 


Totals 


92 


292 


170 


52 


18 


4 


628 


28 


656 




Percentages 


14.6 


46-5 


27.1 


8-3 


2-9 


.6 


100 













3Q 



Helen S. Trounstine Foundation 



TABLE 13 
AGE AT STARTING SCHOOL, OF CHILDREN IN EACH GRADE WHO FAILED, 
IN THE TEN SCHOOLS STUDIED, IN JUNE, 1915 



Grades 



Age at Starting School 



5yrs- 



6 yrs. 



7yrs. 



8 yrs. 



9 yrs. 



10 yrs. 
& over 



Total 



Not 
Given 



Grand 
Total 



1st 

2nd 

3rd 

4th 

5th 

6th 

7th 

8th 

Totals 

Percentages 



128 

65 
70 

36 
46 

43 
5i 
20 



33 
19 
21 

13 
16 

24 



173 
9i 
93 
54 
67 
73 
63 
26 



179 
94 
93 

58 
68 

74 
64 
26 



459 



138 



16 



656 



71.8 



21.6 



3-1 



•3 



TABLE 14 

SERIOUS ILLNESS REPORTED FOR THE YEAR 1914-1915, FOR THE CHILDREN 

WHO FAILED IN THE TEN SCHOOLS STUDIED 



Children with Illnesses during 1914-15 

Yes 230—47% 

No 259—53% 

Total 489 

Omitted 167 

656 



TABLE 15 
DETAIL OF ILLNESSES DURING 1914-15 OF 230 WHO WERE SICK 



Type of Disease 



Number of Cases 



Number per 1,000 
from whom illness 
data was secured 



Digestive system 

Nutritional disorders 

I nfectious — serious 

Infectious — children's diseases 

Eye, ear, nose and throat 

Lung 

Heart 

Blood... 

Urogenital 

Nervous system 

Miscellaneous 

Total 



23 

4 

31 

78 

69 

11 

3 

4 

6 

10 

39 



278 



47 
8 

63 

159 

141 

22 

6 

8 

12 

20 

80 



566 



Retardation in Cincinnati Public Elementary Schools 



31 



TABLE 16 

INCOMES OF FAMILIES OF CHILDREN WHO FAILED IN TEN SCHOOLS, 

CLASSIFIED ACCORDING TO SIZES OF FAMILIES 



Weekly 

Family 
Incomes 


Size of Family 


Age Classifica- 
tion of Mem- 
bers of Families 


1 


2 


3 


4 


5 


6 


7 


8 


9 


10 


11 


12 


13 

1 
1 


All 
Sizes 


Adults 


Minors 


$ 1— 4.99 

5— 6.99 

7— 8.99 

9—10.99 

11 — 12.99 

13—14.99 

I5—I7-99 
18 — 20.99 
21 — 24.99 
25—29.99 
30—39-99 




3 
1 

3 
1 
6 


4 
3 

8 

14 

7 
5 
3 

8 


5 
4 
9 
7 

18 
21 
22 

13 

10 

1 

1 


5 

7 

9 

21 

22 

15 

9 

12 

1 


2 
8 
8 

7 
21 
18 

9 

5 

2 

3 


3 
2 

7 

6 

11 

8 

5 
6 

3 
2 


2 

2 
1 
6 
4 
4 
4 
3 
1 
1 


2 

5 
5 
4 


1 

2 

4 
2 
1 


2 

1 

2 
1 


10 
19 
35 

45 

78 
89 
84 
52 
49 
8 

7 


13 
37 
64 
92 

159 
198 
207 

124 
124 

25 
22 


29 

51 

no 

152 
276 
283 
287 
192 
142 

25 
22 


Total 





H 


52 


in 


101 


83 


53 


28 


16 


10 


6 

$15 
00 

$ 1 
36 





2 


476* 


1065 


1569 


Median 
Income ,| 




$ 9 


$12 
55 


$14 
25 


$13 
82 


$14 
60 


$14 
65 


$14 
50 


$18 
60 


$16 
50 


$14-15 






Per Cap. 
Income 




$ 4 
50 


$ 4 
18 


$ 3 
56 


$ 2 
76 


$ 2 
43 


$ 2 
09 


$ 1 
81 


$ 2 
06 


$1 
65 


$ 2.66 






* Data for 180 children omitted. 



TABLE 17 
NUMBER OF WAGE EARNERS IN FAMILIES OF CHILDREN WHO FAILED 



Number of 
Wage Earners 


Number of Families Having Each 
Specified Number of Wage Earners 


Total Number of 
Wage Earners 



I 

2 
3 
4 
5 
6 


7 

385 

152 

61 

17 

8 
2 




385 

304 

183 

68 

40 

12 


All Families 1.56 


632 


992 


Data Omitted 


24 




Grand Total 


656 





32 



Helen S. Trounstine Foundation 



TABLE 18 
WEEKLY WAGES OF PARENTS OF CHILDREN WHO FAILED 



Wage Groupings 


Number of Fathers in 
Each Specified Group 


Number of Mothers in 
Each Specified Group 


Under $4 


'1 5 
4i 

88 

36 
72 
46 
28 
24 
9 


18 

35 

3i 

3 

2 
1 
1 
1 


$ 4— 5 

6— 8 


9 — 10 

11 — 12 


13—14 

15—16 : 

17—18 

19 — 20 

21 — 24 

25 and over 


Total for whom wages are stated 
Omitted of those working 


359 
177 


92 
50 




Total working 


536 


142 





TABLE 19 
MONTHLY RENTALS PAID BY FAMILIES OF CHILDREN WHO FAILED 



Monthly Rentals 


Number of Families Pay- 
ing Specified Rentals 


$ 3 — 4.99 


12 

87 
170 

89 
91 
31 

7 

18 
2 


5 
1 

2 

3 
1 

77 


5 — 6.99 


7 — 9.99 


10 — 11.99 


12 — 14.99 


15 — 17.99 


18 — 19.99 


20 — 22.99 


23 — 26.99 


27 — 29.99 


30 — 34.99 .' 


18.00* 


30 — 33.00* 


35.00* 


50.00* 


Own home 




Data omitted 


596 
60 






656 



* Cases in which rent includes store or where rooms are subrented. 



Retardation in Cincinnati Public Elementary Schools 



33 



TABLE 20 

NUMBER OF ROOMS OCCUPIED ACCORDING TO NUMBER OF PERSONS IN 

FAMILIES OF CHILDREN WHO FAILED 



Number of Persons 
Per Family 


Number of Rooms in Apartment Occupied 


1 


2 


3 


4 


5 


6 


7 


8 


9 


10 


Total 


1 


1 
1 

5 
1 


8 
29 

42 
35 
4i 
17 

7 

1 

3 


2 
16 

51 

46 
40 
24 

15 
12 

5 
1 


1 

6 

24 
18 

19 
22 
11 

5 
3 
2 

1 


1 

4 
10 

13 

6 

11 

5 
6 
I 
2 


1 
1 

2 
9 

7 
4 
4 
4 
3 

I 
1 


2 
1 

4 
4 
2 
1 

1 


2 

3 
1 

1 


I 


1 

1 

1 
1 


16 

58 

139 

126 

119 

82 

45 
29 

13 
8 
1 

2 


2 


3 


4 


5 


6 


7 


8 


9 


10 


11 


12 


13 




Total 


8 


183 


212 


112 


59 


37 


15 


7 


I 


4 


638 





TABLE 21 
CONTACTS WITH SOCIAL AGENCIES REPORTING TO CONFIDENTIAL EX- 
CHANGE OF FAMILIES OF CHILDREN WHO FAILED 



Agency 


Number of Times Reported 
Sept. 19 14 — Sept. 191 5 


Associated Charities 


49 

4 

3 

43 

53 

36 

63 
191 


United Jewish Charities 


Catholic Charities 


Salvation Armv 


Attendance Dept. Bd. of E 


Juvenile Court 


School Nurses 


Child Welfare 




Total No. Times Reported 


442 

229 


Total No. Cases Reported 





34 



Helen S. Trounstine Foundation 



TABLE 22 
EMPLOYMENT OF CHILDREN WHO FAILED 



Types of Occupation 



Number of Children 



Store 

Moving Picture Theatre. 

Carpenter Work 

Stable 

Light Lamps 

Newspapers 

On Wagon 

Errands 

Help Father 

Home 



4 
i 

i 
i 
i 

36 
2 
8 
2 

39 



Occupation Omitted. 



Children Working. 

Not Working 

Data Omitted 



95 



103 

512 
4i 



Total Children. 



656 



TABLE 23 

TYPES OF RECREATION MENTIONED BY 481 OF THE CHILDREN 

WHO FAILED • 



Indoors 


Outdoors 


Home 230 

Nursery 2 


Parks and Playgrounds 92 

School Yard 9 


Church Clubs and Parties 8 

Movies 33 

Music 13 

Sewing 6 

Reading 10 


Streets 55 

Skates 4 

Bicycle 2 

Swimming 5 

Tennis 2 

Ball 39 

Athletics and Gymnasium 3 


Total 310 


Miscellaneous 15 


Total 226 



175 children gave no information as to recreation. 

TABLE 24 
LANGUAGES SPOKEN IN HOMES OF CHILDREN WHO FAILED 





Alone 


With English 


Total 


English 


32 
3 

19 
1 
1 

5 


534 
37 

5 

2 
1 


534 
69 

3 
24 
1 
1 
2 
6 


German 


Hungarian 


Italian 


Russian 


Servian 


Syrian 


Yiddish 




Totals 


61 


579 


640 





Retardation in Cincinnati Public Elementary Schools 



35 



TABLE 25 
PARENTAL RELATIONS OF CHILDREN WHO FAILED 





Father 


Mother 


Total 


Separated 


11 
89 
10 


1 
29 

8 


12 

118 

18 

8 


Dead 


Step Parents 


Living with Relative 




Relationship Normal 


no 


38 


156 
492 

8 


Data Omitted 




Total 






656 





TABLE 26 
TIME SPENT AT HOME BY PARENTS OF CHILDREN WHO FAILED 



Father 



Mother 



All or Most of the Time 

Four or Five Days and Nights 

Two Days and Nights 

Half of the Day 

Noons and Nights 

Nights Only 

Daytime Only 

Week Ends 

Irregular and Little 

Omitted 

Total 



37 



6 

3 

305 

19 

4 

37 



297 

6 

1 

10 

54 



401 

255 



368 

288 



656 



656 



TABLE 27 
CAUSES OF FAILURE IN 1915, AS REPORTED BY 



Parents 



Teacher 



Total 



Mental 

Physical 

Immature.' 

Disposition and Habits 

Attitude Toward School 

Conduct 

Truancy 

Absence 

Change of Schools 

Late Entrance 

Difficult Studies 

Conditions in School 

Conditions in Home 

Total 

Number of Children Involved 



82—14.6% 
117—20.9% 

12— 2.1% 



83—14-8^ 

52— 9.3% 

77—13.7% 
24— 4.3% 

4— 0.7% 

29— 5.2% 

52— 9.3% 

28— 5.0% 



225—30.6% 

101—13.7% 

72— 9.8% 

54— 7-3% 
94—12.7% 

13- 1.8% 

4— 0.5% 

88—11.9% 

19— 2.6% 

7— 1.0% 

9- 1.2% 



51— 6.9% 



30—18.2% 
49—29.5% 
10— 6.0% 

27-16:3% 
3- 1-8% 

36-21:6% 
5— 3-0% 

1— 0.6% 
3— i-8% 

2— 1.2% 



560-100.0% 
517 



737-100.0% 

584 



166 100.0% 
166 



NOTE: Percentages in this table are based on total number of citations of causes. 
Percentages in text are based on number of children involved. 



36 



Helen S. Troanstine Foundation 



TABLE 28 

HEIGHT AND WEIGHT BY AGES 

GIRLS 



HEIGHT 


WEIGHT 


be 
< 




u G 


4> — 

bo n! 

2 £ 

£| 

<2 


4> 
bO— 1 

a a 

>- 3 
4J +j 
> CJ 


0) 


a) a 

be oj 

- 4> 


biO 

< 


u a 

4> 4> 
3j2 


0J_ 

2 6 

4> Im 

> 


bo- 
os as 

4) £ 

> 


41 
u 

be 4) 

U ,4> 

4) tt 

>s 






Ft. In. 


Ft. In. 


In. 






Lbs. 


Lbs. 




6-5 


3 


3— 9-i 


3—10.0 


+ -9 


6-5 


3 


43-32 


50.50 


+ 6.18 


7 


5 


13 


3— II-3 


3— 5-i 


—6.2 


7-5 


13 


47.61 


46.19 


— 1.42 


8 


5 


11 


4— 1.1 


4 — 0.0 


— 1.1 


8-5 


11 


52.38 


53-52 


+ 1. 14 


9 


5 


7 


4— 3-1 


4 — 1.2 


—1.9 


9-5 


7 


57-27 


56.60 


— 0.67 


10 


5 


7 


4— 4-9 


4— 2.3 


—2.6 


10.5 


6 


62.77 


60.95 


— 1.82 


11 


5 


5 


4— 7-3 


4 — 6.0 


—1-3 


"•5 


5 


69-34 


77.10 


+ 7.76 


12 


5 


1 


4— 9-7 


4—10.4 


+0.7 


12.5 


1 


78.54 


82.00 


+ 3-46 


13 


5 


3 


5— 4-0 


4— 1 1. 7 


—4-3 


13-5 


3 


88.51 


83.66 


— 4-85 


H 


5 


9 


5— 2.5 


4 — 11.0 


—3-5 


14-5 


10 


98.10 


95-OI 


— 3-09 


15 


5 


8 


5— 3-o 


5— 3-3 


+0.3 


15-5 


10 


106.48 


107.20 


+ 0.72 


17-5 


1 


5— 3-7 


4— 9.0 


-6.7 


17-5 


1 


II5-I5 


89.00 


—26.15 




68 


4 — ■ 6.0 


4— 4.0 


— .2 




70 


70.20 


70.43 


+ -23 



Norms of Height and Weight are taken from Smedley. 
missioner of Education, 1, 1008-1099, (1902). 



Child study in Chicago. Report of U. S. Com- 



TABLE 29 

HEIGHT AND WEIGHT BY AGES 

BOYS 



HEIGHT 


WEIGHT 




*o 






41 




"o 






4> 




u G 

4) 4) 


bfl nS 


4) 

bo— 


be 4> 




u G 
4> 4) 


4) _, 
bO n3 


41 

be— 


&G 


4> 


Grz 


2 a 

4) )-, 


4) i 


03 J- 

U 4) 


(/) 


S2 


2 6 

4) S-, 


03 o3 
<-> 3 
41 Xj 


03 >- 
U, 4> 
4) |±3 


bo 


i^-c 


> O 


> (J 


>S 


be 


3 js 


> O 


> CJ 


>s 


< 


£0 


<2 


<< 


<Q 


< 


ZO 


<£ 


<< 


<Q 






Ft. in. 


Ft. In. 


In. 






Lbs. 


Lbs. . 




6-5 


2 


3— 9-1 


3- 6.5 


—2.6 


6-5 


2 


45.10 


42.70 


— 2.30 


7-5 


13 


3— 1 1 -4 


3—10.2 


— 1.2 


7-5 


12 


49-39 


47-35 


— 2.04 


8-5 


8 


4— 1.4 


4— 1.7 


+0.3 


8,5 


7 


54-38 


55-83 


+ i-45 


9-5 


7 


4— 3-5 


4— 2.5 


— 1.0 


9-5 


6 


59-47 


63-45 


+ 3-98 


10.5 


9 


4— 5-2 


4— 5-7 


+0.5 


10.5 


7 


65-25 


68.10 


+ 2.85 


11 5 


4 


4— 5-8 


4— 4.0 


—2.8 


ii-5 


4 


7o.55 


67.60 


— 2.95 


12.5 


7 


4— 8.8 


4— 4.0 


-4.8 


12.5 


7 


76.73 


69.00 


— 7-74 


13-5 


3 


4 — 1 1.6 


4— 8.0 


—3-6 


13-5 


4 


84.61 


84.10 


- 0.51 


14-5 


6 


5— 1-9 


5— 3-7 


+ 1.8 


14-5 


6 


95.00 


105.40 


+ 10.40 


15-5 


6 


5— 4-6 


5— 2.5 


— 2.1 


15-5 


6 


107.18 


107.50 


+ 0.13 


17-5 











17-5 

























65 


4— 5-8 


4— 4-5 


—1-3 




61 


69.6 


70.0 


+ .40 



Norms of Height and Weight are taken from Smedley. 



Retardation in Cincinnati Public Elementary Schools 37 



FORM OF CARD USED IN COLLECTING DATA FOR THIS REPORT 



Act. Gr.lNot. Gr. 



No. T. changed 

T.changed'U.'IS . 



Subjects good l 
Subjects poor ir 



Effort.... 
Conduct 



Total Dan Absent N 



Reason— Days Reason— Days 

Sick Truancy 

Sickness Poverty 

in family Neglect ol Parents .. 

Changed School Other 



2nd Term 



3rd Tel 



Went Backward ii 



Grade* Pre 
Repeated 



Child Ambitious> 



Other members family ret > 



Tonsils Adenoids Nose 



Ears Heart Lungs 



Illnesses Past Year 



Senous lllnes.es Since Birth 



Juvenile Protective Association — Retardation Study. 



I Guardian'-. Name 



F.mily Unil 


Adult. 


M.non 


Hommg 
Good 
F.i. 
Poo. 1 



Room. Rem pe. Mo. Mm. 



father-Do*! y« 

BirihPl.ce 

Length Res. in City 

W^e. 

Time spent at home ., 

Don Child use School Study Hnui> 



MOTHER Dead Y« 



Bith Place 

Length Res in City 

Occupation 

Wages 

Time spent at home 

Opportunity for quiet study? 



Child Work before or after School Houra> Occupation (C 

Child's Recreation (Character and Amount) 

Parents' Opinion of Cause of Failure 

Teacher's Opinion of Cause of Failure 

Impression of Family 

Remaib: 



language Spoken .1 Home A PP'<> 
1 Appro 


. Bed Time 
l. Rising Hour 




Ate P.tenl. Amb.liou. fo. Child) 






1. Ch.ld helped with Might U\„k> 



Is there opportunity for quiet study at home> 



. Invesiigator Date.. 



38 Helen S. Trounstine Foundation 

METHOD OF DETERMINING MENTALITY 
By Mrs. Helen T. Woolley 

The retarded children tested for the Juvenile Protective Association 
were all given the form of the Binet Tests, known as the Yerkes Point Scale. 
This series of tests is recorded in terms of the points obtained out of a pos- 
sible 100 points. These points can then be translated into mental age by- 
reference to a table showing how many points a child of each age ought to 
obtain. For each child an intelligence quotient was figured. The intelli- 
gence quotient is the ratio of the points obtained, to those which ought to 
be obtained by an average child of the same chronological age. The usual 
standard adopted is that an intelligence quotient below 75 means some 
degree of feeble-mindedness, one from 75 to 89 inclusive, indicates back- 
wardness; one from 90 to no inclusive indicates a normal state of develop- 
ment, one from in to 125 inclusive indicates a bright child and above 125 
a brilliant child. 

In addition to the Yerkes Point Scale, supplementary tests were used, 
which were chosen with reference to the age and mental status of the child. 
Many of these supplementary tests can also be graded according to the 
score which the average child of a given age should obtain. Frequently 
the Supplementary tests are in agreement with the diagnosis indicated by 
the Yerkes Point Scale, but sometimes they are either much better, or 
much worse than the Yerkes record and therefore tend to modify the diag- 
nosis. The Yerkes Point Scale is more dependent on linguistic ability 
than many of the supplementary tests. The final diagnosis takes both 
series into consideration. 

The diagnoses have divided the children into four groups. Those who 
could be definitely judged feeble-minded have been so classified. The 
children who might be called either feeble-minded or backward according 
as one's judgment is influenced by one or another of the phases of the tests, 
are classified as borderline cases. Those who are above the suspicion of 
feeble-mindedness, but below average in ability are designated as inferior, 
while those who are of average ability are called normal. The following 
abreviations are used : 

Constr. A. Construction Puzzle A. 

Pict. C. Picture Completion. 

Ellis Ellis Object Memory. 

Can. Cancellation. 

Percentile Rank. Rank on a scale of 100 in comparison with 

normal children of the same age. 

Opp. Opposites 



Retardation in Cincinnati Public Elementary Schools 



39 



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More than one year above age — 3 cases 
Within one year of age — 17 cases. 
More than one year below age — 59 cases. 
More than two years below age — 39 cases. 



Retardation in Cincinnati Public Elementary Schools 



43 



INDEX 



Absence 

Cause of failure, 8, 9, 11,21, 23, 26, 35. 

Cause of, 11. 

Extent of, 8, Diagram, page 10. 

Remedies for, 4. 

Result of illness, 1 1. 
Abstract studies, failure in, 24. 
Achievements of Cincinnati Schools, 26. 
Adenoids, 13. 

Age distribution of children who failed, 27. 
Age distribution at starting school, 30. 
Ages: Mental V. S. physical, 42. 
Aliquot numbers, 24. 

Ambition of children and parents, 23, 24. 
Anemia, 13. 

Arithmetic, failure in, 24. 
Associated charity cases, 33. 
Attendance department cases, 33. 

Baths, lack of, in homes, 17. 
Binet Tests, 38. 
Bloom School, 26. 
Boys, failure of, 23. 

Catholic charity cases, 33. 

Card used in investigation, 37. 

Causes of failure, 8, 35. 

Change of schools, 18, 35. 

Child labor, 18, 34. 

Child welfare cases, 33. 

Cincinnati's forward steps, 26. 

Classification of children who fail needed, 

25- 
Conduct and failure, 23, 24, 35. 
Congested living conditions, 17, 33. 
Cost of decent living, 14. 
Curriculum and failure, 5, 23 — 26, 35. 

Defects, physical (see physical). 
Defects, mental (see feeble-mindedness). 
Degeneracy theory, 22. 
Departmentalization as remedy, 5. 
Diagnosis of children needed, 25. 
Difficult studies as cause of failure, 35. 

(see also curriculum). 
Dullness, 4, 19 — 23, 25, 35, 38 ff. 

Ear defects, 13. 

Effort and failure, 24. 

Employment of children who failed, 18, 34. 

Enthusiasm, lack of, 23. 

Entrance, late, 9. 

Eye defects, 13. 

Extent of retardation, 5-7. 

By grades (diagram) 7. 

Of failure, 27, 29. 

Of poverty, 13-17. 

Failure. 

Absence as cause, 8, 9, 11, diagram 10. 
By grades, 27. 
Causes, 8, 23, 35. 
Extent of, 27. 

Families, size of, 33. 

Below poverty line, 14, diagram, p. 15. 
Family incomes, 14, 16, 31. 



Fatherlessness, 17, 35. 
Fathers' wages, 32. 
Feeble-mindedness, 4, 19-23, 25, 26, 35. 

And poverty, 2 1 -22. 

Extent, 19, 38ff. 

Method of Measuring, 38 ff . 

Treatment, 4. 
Foreign languages spoken at home, 18, 34 
Form used in this investigation, 37. 
Further investigation needed, 5. 

Gary plan referred to, 5. 

Geography, failure in, 24. 

Girls, failures of, 23. 

German spoken at home, 34. 

German, failures in, 24. 

Grades in which children failed, 27. 

Retardation by grades, 7. 
Grammar, failure in, 24. 

Heights of children who failed, 13, 36. 
Hereditary causes of failure, 19 ff. 
History, failures in, 24. 
Home conditions. 

Cause of absence, 11, of dullness, 18, 35. 

Employment, 34. 

Languages spoken, 34. 

Parental, 35. 

Recreation, 34. 
Home study, opportunity for, 17. 
Home visiting by teachers, 5. 
Household arts, failures in, 24. 
Housing — see congestion, rent. 

Illness and failure, 3, 11, 13, 30. 
Immaturity and failure, 35. 
Inability to master studies, 11 ff. 
Inadequacy of family incomes, 14-16. 
Incomes of families of children who failed 

14, 31. 

Industrial arts, failures in, 24. 
Infant mortality and poverty, 14. 
Interest and failure, 24 ff. 
Investigation, further needed, 5. 
Italian spoken at home, 34. 

Juvenile court cases, 33. . 
Juvenile Protective Association, 8. 

Language and composition, failures in, 24. 

Languages spoken at home, 34. 

Late entrance, 9, 35. 

Listlessness, 23, 24. 

Living standards 13 ff. 

Lungs, defective, 13. 

Mental examinations, 19, 35, 38 ff. 

Recommended for all children who 
fail, 4. 
Method of study, 8. 
Method of estimating true retardation, 

28. 



44 



Helen S. Trounstine Foundation 



I N DEX — Continued 



Milwaukee. 

City Club reports quoted, 14. 
Mothers at work, 17-18. 
Mothers' wages, 32. 
Moving pictures as cause of failure, 18. 

Opportunity school, 26. 
Orphans, 35. 
Overcrowding, 17, 33. 

Parental condition, 17, 35. 
Parents' estimate of causes of 

Absence, II. 

Failure, 35. 
Physical defects, II-13, 35. 

And poverty, 16, 17. 

Diagram, 12. 

Remedies, 4. 

Poverty. 

And feeble-mindedness, 21-22. 

And physical defects, 13-17. 

Cause of absence, 13-14. 

Cause of retardation, 13. 

Cause of sickness, 13. 

Extent of, 14-15, diagram 15. 
Practical studies mastered, 24. 
Pretuberculous children, 13. 
Previous failures, 29. 
Promotions, standards of, 26 ff. 
Promotions, semi-annual, 5. 
Psychological tests, 38 ff . 

Quiet study, home opportunities for, 17. 

Reading, failures in, 24. 
Recommendations, 4-5. 
Recreation and failure, 18, 34. 
Rentals paid by families of children who 
fail, 17, 32. 

Retardation (see also, failure). 
By grades, diagram, 7. 
Extent, 5. 
Method of estimating, 28. 

Salvation Army cases, 33. 



School nurses cases, 33. 

Schools, failures in various, 26 ff. 

Schools, list of those studied, 8. 

Semi-annual promotions recommended, 5. 

Sex and failure, 23. 

Sickness, 3, 11, 13, 30. 

Sizes of families, 31, 33. 

Sleep, amount of, 18. 

Social agencies treating families of children 

who failed, 22, 33. 
Spelling, failures in, 24. 
Standard of living, 13 ff. 
Standards of promotion, 5, 26 ff. 
Statistical appendix, 27 ff. 
Studies in which failure occurred, 24. 
Summary, 3. 
Supernormal children (diagram) 7. 

Teachers' estimate of causes of failure, 35. 

Teeth defective 13. 

Time spent at home by parents, 35. 

Tonsils, 13. 

Trounstine, Helen, 8. 

Truancy as cause of 

Absence, 11. 

Failure, 35. 
Tuberculosis and poverty, 14. 
United Jewish Charities cases, 33. 
U. S. Public Health Service report quoted, 

14. 
Unskilled laborers, curriculum for future, 

25- 

Wage-earners, number of, 31. 

Wages, classification of, 32. 

Weather, cause of absence, II. 

Weight of children who failed, 13, 36. 

Widowed mothers, 35. 

Woolley, Helen Thompson, 16, 19, 20, 38. 

Working children, median family incomes, 

16. 
Writing, failures in, 24. 

Yerkes Point Scale, 38. 




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